Hello, Daytime here and I will be your narrator this evening so please take your seats and we will start the meal. The meal will consist of an entree or what happened on Friday night and then will be followed by a main course, which is what we did on Saturday, then we will move on to Sundays activities for desert.
Daytime, Betty, Gilda, Babe, Ian, Bear and Cookie all met at the hall at 5:30 p.m., there they waited in the pouring rain for Mop who was to arrive later. They passed the time by playing piggy in the middle with one of those squishy little footballs that you buy from Maccas.
When Mop arrived and our gear was loaded we began the trip to Appin Scout Hall. We arrived in Appin at around 7:30 p.m. but were not yet allowed into the hall because there was some dancing class that had hired the hall until 9:00 p.m.. So there we were in the middle of Appin standing in the freezing cold and pouring rain in our scout uniforms. Seeing as there was nothing else to do we decided to put up our tents, well at least the Korrahill scouts did. We chose the nice flat paddock right out the back of the hall as a good site to put the tents but then we were told that we had to put out tents up over in the scrub. We all thought that really sucked but there wasn't much we could do so we moved our stuff and once again started to put our tents. Unfortunately the site that the Leaders had designated for us to put our tents up in was on top of about 2 inches of soil and then nothing but rock. No matter where you tried to put a peg in you could not get it any further than about 2 inches.
By the time we had our tents up a few from other troops had also begun to erect their tents so we set up our beds and started to eat scoffs. When the dancing people finally left at 9:00 p.m. we went into the hall and were put into patrols. The very first thing we did was play a game called penguin football. This is a game where two teams both charge in and try to push a leader, I sympathize with the leader chosen, over the other teams line. It is a good game and lots of fun but it could be hell if someone managed to fart in the middle of it.
Mop then enlightened us on what the Patrol Leaders job within the troop is. Seeing that we had just arrived and were still learning each others names Korrahill scouts got to answer a lot of questions as they were the only ones that Mop knew but it did not worry us. We tried to answer the questions that we were given and if we couldn't we said something that was a bit sort of grassholish just to keep everyone enthusiastic and it worked. Slowly more people started to put up their hands to answer questions.
This session was followed by another game called indoor basketball and by the end of the game I don't think there was one scout in the hall that hadn't been sent off for one reason or another. Then it was time for Bear to teach us why it is important to know the members of our patrol and what sort of things that we should know about them. Then Mop gave us a piece of paper and some pens. Our job was to design a poster add for scouts highlighting what we thought some of the best things about it were. Our group stuffed theirs up and as a result it ended up being half the size that it was supposed to be but it was still good.
Then it was back over to Bear again but this time the lecture that he gave us was called rate your patrol. This is about realizing the strengths and weaknesses of each of your patrol members. By now it was well past 10:00 p.m. and time for supper. We had milo and bikkies, what a surprise. Then it was time to go to bed but just because you go to bed it doesn't necessarily mean you go to sleep.
We were awoken by Mike Barnes at approximately too early in the morning (7:00am). Betty and Daytime realised that they had gone to sleep only three hours earlier. Everyone got dressed and stumbled into the hall for breakfast. Almost every scout looked like crap. Well we somehow managed to choke down some of Cookie's caca and then it was time for flag break. Then it was inside for three straight sessions from a leader named Chris. The first was about the use of Patrol Councils and how to organise them so that they run efficiently, the second was about how to solve problems that may occur within your patrol such as a tiff between two members withinit aand the third was about how to represet your patrol and present their ideas and queries at a troop council.
Then it was time for a game. The game was continuous cricket and was run by Bear. There were 4 teams, 2 fielding, one bowling and the others batting. The team fielding threw a soccer ball at the bin and the person representing the batting team kicked it as far as they could and took off running around a marker and back trying to get there ready to kick the ball again before the fielding teams could get it back to the bowler to bowl again. This continued until 3 batters got out. The teams rotated so that everyone got a bat. There were some spectacular innings played by Gilda, Vince, Betty and Daytime. One of Daytime's straight drives very narrowly missed belting Nighty in the back of the head!
Then it was back inside for more sessions of teaching. This time it was Bear who was talking to us about the way that we should share the leadership among our patrol members so as to make the best of their abilities. For instance if you have someone who is really good at first aid and you have a first aid base to to complete you should allow them to take charge of the patrol for that particular activity.
